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At first, President Bush tried to lowball his push to partially
privatize Social Security. Or, as Harry Zeeve of the bipartisan
fiscal-watchdog group the Concord Coalition put it, "For 60 days, Bush was
talking about how great private accounts would be, without discussing the
potential for driving the economy off a debt-cliff by borrowing to fund the
accounts."

The American public refused to warm to his half-baked proposal.
(Me, too. I support private accounts, but not without a solid plan to pay
for them.) This left Dubya at a low point, where many other Repubs would
have bashed the Democrats for not even having a plan and then slinked on to
another issue.

Instead, Bush got serious. While 99 percent of Washington pols
have been talking as if Americans have a sacred right to expect something
for nothing, Bush backed a plan by a Democrat, Robert Pozen, called
"progressive indexing." Pozen's plan would maintain Social Security benefit
increases for lower-income workers, while limiting increases for high-income
and middle-income workers, by tying the growth in their benefits to a price
index. The White House claims this plan would fix 70 percent of the system's
projected shortfall.

Bush "definitely put his neck out, and he deserves a lot of
credit for offering a concrete suggestion for how to rein in benefits," said
Zeeve.

No lie. Meanwhile, the Democrats have spent the last two months
acting as if a few tweaks would fix Social Security's woes. They still have
no plan, and they still aren't leveling with the American voter.

The Concord Coalition has put together a series of issues
briefs  you can find them at www.concordcoalition.org  on just how
close to collapse the system is. The organization notes that while Social
Security "trustees say that Social Security is 'solvent' until 2042," what
they mean is that the government has written IOUs for that amount without
setting aside any money to pay it back.

There is no trust fund. While the trust fund has accumulated
trillions in IOUs, "that just means that the government will owe itself a
lot of money." Money it won't have. Thus, after the year 2018, the federal
government will have to find new money to pay expected Social Security
benefits.

In a statement last week, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi
attacked Bush for saying the "unheard of  that he did not intend to pay
the Social Security trust fund back." Pelosi also bashed Bush for cutting
Social Security benefits for the middle class. As if everything would be
hunky-dory without Dubya's plan.

Don't' take my word for it. As The Washington Post reported,
under the Bush-Pozen plan, "workers earning as little as $35,000 a year
would lose a quarter of their promised benefits by 2065, although their
benefit under progressive indexing would be 11 percent larger than the check
Social Security could afford to issue by then."

Democrats say they won't compromise with Bush unless he drops
private accounts, but the voluntary nature of the Bush plan  only those
who want private accounts would have them  is a compromise.

Besides, shouldn't the Dems welcome a plan that would allow poor
workers, if they sign on, to leave their savings to their loved ones?

Meanwhile, some Republicans are distancing themselves from
progressive indexing, lest they be associated with a cut in benefits for
their constituents. They want private accounts without paying for them, to
supplement government benefits without paying for them.

As Zeeve sees it, Washington has become the land of "do-nothing
Democrats and free-lunch Republicans." He would like to see a Social
Security reform that cuts benefits and raises taxes.

If you ask me, Bush has introduced compromise to the equation by
proposing cuts suggested by a Democrat and proposing cuts that hit the GOP
base. Still, that doesn't mean that Bush is done compromising. It won't help
if Bush is compromising alone. It won't help if compromise means not each
side giving something up, but each side getting what it wants, thanks to
borrowing.

If Democrats won't budge at all  not even for a
wealth-weighted plan that offers private accounts only to those who want
them  then the system will go broke. And if GOP pols won't agree to
benefit cuts, or won't agree to a modest tax hike, then the country is sunk.

Voters will be part of the problem, too. The left tells its
partisans to demand that any reform leave out private accounts. The right
tells its base to demand no new taxes. What voters should demand, says
Zeeve, is "a return to adult leadership."

That's the only way to win a solid reform.

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